There's an old cry ... "Remember the Maine!" The USS Maine was a ship sunk in the Havana harbor in 1898 at the outbreak of the Spanish-American War. It went down with three-quarters of its crew and the claim was that it was sunk by a mine. A newspaper coined the phrase to hype the battle against Spain. Funny thing ... I doubt many of us remember the phrase, let alone the Maine. We have our own version of it: "Never forget." What does that refer to? The attack on September 11, 2001, that killed more than 3,000 people. Of course, for a large number of Americans today ... we've forgotten, and "never" is a lot shorter than we thought it would be. Well, anyone younger than 25 has no personal connection to remember.
How quickly we forget. Today is December 7. President Roosevelt referred to December 7, 1941 as "a date which will live in infamy." (Note the correct quote ... not "a day...".) Today is an annual reminder of an infamous attack on Americans. Almost 2,500 civilians and military personnel died in that single attack. The attack hurled the U.S. into a war in the Pacific that would cost the lives of more than 100,000 American military personnel in the Pacific alone, dwarfing September 11.
Infamy. It's such a simple word. It means the state of being bad. It refers to a wicked act. Quite generic, in a sense. What I think is so sad, though, is how we've come to accept "infamy" as normal and, frankly, forgettable. Almost trivial. For instance, in our world today, just about everything Trump says is considered "evil" or "having bad quality." Infamous. Of course, the other side considers anything Biden or Obama or Clinton said in the same light. And we muddle about, forgetting the truly evil -- overlooking, for instance, the the 65 million babies killed by abortion because they were largely ... "inconvenient." Suddenly Elon Musk isn't nearly as "infamous," is he? We remember minor offenses these days and ignore the big ones ... Pearl Harbor, September 11, every single baby executed for being inconvenient ... very sad.
4 comments:
Our short memories is why even God marked days for special consideration for reminding even those that didn't experience something. And while it may not be widely remembered, there are still those that "Remember the Maine" and will "Never Forget". And the fact that there are so few also aligns with the narrative of Scripture.
I highly recommend the movie "Tora, Tora, Tora" for anyone interested in learning about the attack. The movie is a virtual documentary and we watch it every December 7th. The sloppiness of the politics that delayed getting a warning to Pearl Harbor, the political battle between Japan and the USA which led to the attack are all well spelled out.
I just saw this yesterday, and couldn't believe I'd ever heard this before, but Mitsuo Fuchida who led the attack on Pearl Harbor became a Christian evangelist after the war.
Yep, I read about that many years ago and found it to be very, very interesting!! Who'd a thunk it! Great to learn though.
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